Assassin's Creed is an interesting and a little exotic experience to me. I rarely play an action game like this, no matter it's a scroll action game like the old Prince of Persia or a third-person shooter like Gears of War. The only exception is the first-person shooter, which I've played many since Doom, because I think it is more like the real experience in many ways (yeh, you shouldn't be able to see yourself, should you?). At the first time watching the game playing of Assassin's Creed, on the one hand, I loved its historical background and the atmosphere of cities in medieval Middle East; on the other, I got some hesitation in mind because I wasn't sure that I liked some of those gaming designs, such as climbing up to view points to synchronise and open missions. Indeed, my hesitation was growing after reading many people's reviews saying that the playing of Assassin's Creed was repetitive. I thought most games were repetitive, the question was to what extent that a player was willing to accept. Maybe a great storyline could save the situation, like it made some wonderful experiences in first-person shooter such as BioShock and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare.

Anyway, I decided to give it a chance. No, that's not because of its producer Jade Raymond. After some playing I found that I loved this game pretty much. The problem of being repetitive is there, but it isn't that serious as I thought. Particularly when I got the skill of counter kill back, I got addicted to killing guards. This is out of my expectation, in which I think a player should not draw people's attention in any circumstances, and use the assassination skill to nail down enemies. But apparently it doesn't matter whether you climb up from a ladder or from windows for most of cases. And using counter kill to slaughter guards usually makes things easier. Besides, it is fun killing these guards in the game (I repeat, killing in the game, not in real life). Maybe I'm getting tired of using rifle and shotgun to shoot foes, monsters, zombies, etc. The cutscene of counter kill is full of tension, it is variable though repetitive, and, the most importantly, it is bloody. Interestingly, the reason that I can forget the repetitive game playing is because that Assassin's Creed brings different killing experience to me. It makes me recall the first time of playing Doom, the moment that I was firing shotgun: bang, click, bang, click. I feel it's never getting old.

To be honest, my first impression about this game is really bad. First I encountered an issue of lacking a dll file, which should be put in the folder 'system32' under Windows directory, and users are required to download this file by themselves on the Internet. I don't remember I have met this kind of thing, and, seriously, I'm not installing a freeware on Linux, I paid my money for a commercial product. Doesn't the publisher think we deserve a more appropriate treatment and support because of our support on their products? And the more interesting thing is that the Russian version actually has been published for one year, and now users still have to download this dll file on their own. I have thought we should have had a more complete product.

Fine, I downloaded the file and put it into the folder, now another issue showed up. An error warning window popped up saying 'can't load splash screen bitmap.' What were I supposed to do? There is no answer about this on the official forum of the publisher. And with many other bugs during playing, the only thing people could do was just begging them for a patch to fix these damn problems. Anyway, at last someone (a player having this problem) found this issue was caused by the incomplete file extraction during the installation. Actually, you only have to copy the file setup.dat to your hard drive and rename it as setup.rar, then you can use WinRar or 7-zip to extract it completely. At the moment of getting this game started, I was really frustrated and disappointed and wondering why I'd bother myself to buy this game? Why didn't I just stick on Steel Beasts Pro, that fantastic modern tank simulation with publisher's fully support and frequent update?

Oh, man, I don't know, I really don't know. And I don't know either why I buy another tank simulation Steel Fury from this publisher, after all these bad and stupid experiences. Maybe that's because I was a tank gunner, and I just can't help myself.

I haven't tested this game thoroughly (only played German campaign for a while), but I have to say, despite the technical issues of starting the game, the designer really did a good job. The 3D virtual compartment is outstanding, the interior details are replicated nicely and look just like the real Tiger. The graphics of environment is beautiful, and my laptop with Core 2 T5500/GeForce Go 7400 is able to run it smoothly. Though sometimes I can see some glitches like objects disappear and appear again. There are some known drawbacks, like too less missions in each campaign (total 12), scripted mission, and so on. I'd like to put more attention on the realism of this game, to see if it deserves to be called a tank simulation.

Yeah, I know, after a whole year, I still haven't play through this brilliant action RPG even once. I always have problems in playing RPG, probably because of my ambition of creating a tough character which is able to tackle down the strongest foe in the game just like cutting a cake. So I replayed it for several times, and I've never touched the second planet of the main quest. Actually, I realise that Mass Effect doesn't work in this way only very recently (of course, after reading some guides): your very first character has no way to be the strongest one, you don't have any bonus from the achievements and extra skills. And even worse, my squad died several times in some difficult combats like the one on Therum, on the mission of saving Liara from Prothean ruin, when I was playing 'normal' difficulty as a soldier with Kaidan and Tali. It was quite frustrating at the moment, because I usually hear of people saying this game is very easy on forums, and I even couldn't defeat those Geth there!

Anyway, once I have a soldier of Level 40 or more with some sophisticated equipments, it's not a big deal to fight against a bunch of Geth Armatures even in 'insanity' difficulty, eh, right?

Currently I have completed Feros and kept playing UNC side quests. UNC side quests are quite boring in my opinion, nothing more than killing mercenary or destroying drone/Geth and killing/negotiating with biotic groups, etc., but they are indeed good sources of credtis and XP. Many people complain about the control of MAKO, I think the control is fine to me, though you have to realise it isn't like how we did in other games or daily life. The frame of controlling depends on the view of camera, not the direction of the front of MAKO. Exploring planets is okay, I'm happy to have extra credits and XP by finding mineral deposits, but the physical model of MAKO is absolutely ridiculous. Try to drive and fall from a hundred-meter-high cliff, nothing happens. I bet no soldier would drive Stryker like that, period.